Black and white photo of Morris dancers taken on 6th June 1927
left to right Tanner snr. Billy Flux, E Lay, Hudson. Bertie Hunt, Freddie Tanner, (written on back)

Sam Bennett born (1865-1951) from Ilmington, a frequent dancer and musician in Bampton, this photo dated 1920
Sam had the distinction of being called “a rotter” by Cecil Sharp. He was responsible for reviving the Morris tradition in the Warwickshire village of Ilmington. Although a fiddle player himself, he learned the tunes from a local pipe and tabor player, Tom Foster, who “no longer had enough teeth to hold the pipe in place” In the process of reviving the dances, Bennett did some improving and inventing along the way. To Sharp, this was inexcusable meddling; what he most treasured about traditional dance was that is was supposedly not the work of individual creativity, but of centuries of continuous evolution by the common, preferably uneducated people. Bennett was recorded in 1933 by a Harvard academic, James Madison Carpenter. Being a self-taught fiddler, and having learned his tunes directly from a piper, it is little wonder that his playing, though very rhythmic, was plain and unadorned except with frequent open-string drones.

Record of John White's memoirs created by his great great great grandchild AKA Jackie White. 1824-1905
Resident of Sandford Cottage
married Ann Bedwell (servant of Dr. John Allen Giles)